Electrotherapy devices have been used for treatment of the human body to reduce pain, muscle spasm, edema, and muscle re-education. Typically, such devices employ an electrical generator or generators which produce a radio frequency sinusoidal current in continuous or modulated modes. The current output of the generators is applied through electrodes attached to the skin of a body portion of a patient to electrically stimulate the body portion.
Very early U.S. Pat. Nos. 533,791 and 668,661 disclose apparatus for subjecting a patient to direct electrical current traveling from a metal plate, or conductor, located below and above the patient, with the conductivity of the skin surface enhanced by packing sand, metal, shot, or salt crystals around the patient. The sand may be heated with steam or hot air which causes the patient to sweat, providing a conductive path for the electrical current. It is believed that such treatment by direct current with a positive charge to a negative charge through the patient's body, as disclosed in these early patents, could be quite dangerous and could cause burns and serious injury.
More recent U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,411,268; 4,960,124; and 4,976,264 disclose electrotherapy devices for muscle stimulation of the human body wherein generated electrical stimulation signals are applied to a patient's body through electrodes attached to the body. U.S. Pat. No 4,240,437 discloses apparatus for electric massage treatment of animals, including humans, wherein pulse repetition rate, amplitude, and polarity of the electrical signals can be controlled for selected periods of time.
It is also known to treat portions of the human body by the use of a fluidized bed of solid particles suspended in air in such a manner that the mixture possesses the property of a fluid which may be heated or cooled to provide a massaging action to the portion of the body submerged in the fluidized bed. U.S. Pat. No. 4,498,462 discloses apparatus for applying massage and heat or cold therapy to the arms, legs, or other parts of the body of a human or animal using a fluidized solids bed as the heat transfer medium. The massaging action of the fluidized bed may be accompanied by heat or cold imparted to the mass by utilizing suitable heating elements, or heating may be generated by compressing the gas employed to fluidize the bed. U.S. Pat. No. 4,583,530 discloses a fluidized bed apparatus for treating equine body parts, and discusses the use of such fluidized beds for whirlpool massaging action for treatment of arms, legs, and other body parts of a human.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,392 discloses a vertical cylindrical vessel containing a flexible tubular bag into which a limb of the human body may be inserted. The vessel contains granular molding material which may be fluidized by air and surrounds an inner and outer bag containing the body limb. The space between the bags is filled with mercury to treat oedema of the upper and lower extremities of the human body. The fluidized bed is de-fluidized to achieve a solid molding surrounding the mercury-filled space and limb of the patient.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,866,606 discloses apparatus and method for cyclically forming a precisely contoured support for a patient requiring a fixed position, as for example, undergoing traction, by means of periodically fluidizing granular material disposed within a container which, upon successive fluidization, forms the contoured support to distribute pressure over a substantial portion of the body of a patient in avoidance of concentrated pressure on restricted areas thereof.
European Patent Application 332,242-A discloses use of a bed of moisture and fluid absorbing beads which are fluidized by an air supply having low relative humidity and suitable temperature to increase the regenerative action of the fluidization bed necessary for abstracting moisture and fluid from industrial and agricultural products, humans, and animals.
Although electrotherapy treatment and fluidized bed massage treatment have heretofore been employed separately in treatment of human patients, it not known that such temperature controlled massage treatment and electrotherapy have been simultaneously employed in treatment of a patient in varying sequences to produce a combined therapy.